Speaker 1: I'm Tamika D.
Speaker 2: Mallory and it Shit Boy my Son in General.
Speaker 3: We are your host of TMI.
Speaker 2: Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and Inspiration New Energy.
Speaker 3: Hello everybody, this is a new episode of TMI, and
Speaker 3: it is the summer. It's August, and so you know,
Speaker 3: things have been a little bit different in terms of
Speaker 3: what we've been doing with the show during this month.
Speaker 1: But we will be.
Speaker 3: Back to our regularly scheduled programming come September after our
Speaker 3: semi vacation, but it's not really a vacation because we
Speaker 3: still have been bringing you all very very important content.
Speaker 3: Last week, my son sat down with a group of
Speaker 3: brothers many that I respect, all of them that I respect,
Speaker 3: and had a really really powerful conversation and I hope
Speaker 3: that you all have an opportunity to listen into that.
Speaker 1: We're back to my Son the General. You're back. We're
Speaker 1: here for.
Speaker 3: Another week, and today we're jumping straight into an interview
Speaker 3: with a very very important political and civil rights icon.
Speaker 1: We are at the convention.
Speaker 3: We're literally in Chicago at the DNC, and so there's
Speaker 3: so much happening. If you could see everything going on
Speaker 3: on the other side, of this device, you.
Speaker 1: Would know how how busy it is.
Speaker 3: But it was very important for us to bring context
Speaker 3: because one of the things that I think we both know,
Speaker 3: my son, is that the Internet is telling us all
Speaker 3: types of things. Misinformation, people uninformed, people don't know history,
Speaker 3: people really don't understand the road that has been traveled
Speaker 3: to get not only to this moment, but the fights
Speaker 3: that have taken place and the struggle that has gone
Speaker 3: on in our world and certain me in America, in
Speaker 3: Black America for a long time. And so we asked
Speaker 3: this icon to join us this morning. And if you
Speaker 3: don't know who he is, please do your research. We
Speaker 3: are talking with doctor Benjamin Chaevs, not just Ben Chavis
Speaker 3: we so used to calling him ben Chaevs. His doctor
Speaker 3: Benjamin Schaevs. And he his current job is the President
Speaker 3: and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. That's the
Speaker 3: National Newspaper Publishers Association n NPA. But he has you
Speaker 3: have you are here with us so many other things
Speaker 3: that make you a legend.
Speaker 1: That's your current.
Speaker 3: Work that you are involved in, which is still a
Speaker 3: form of activism, telling our stories to us by us
Speaker 3: in Black newspapers all across the country, and I'm shore
Speaker 3: you there. You know it expands beyond that, but you
Speaker 3: are truly a legend in the civil rights movement. We
Speaker 3: just want to welcome you and thank you so much
Speaker 3: for joining us this morning.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, Tamika my son. I'm so honored to
Speaker 4: be in your presence. You know, Fredick doesn't said it best.
Speaker 4: Freedom is a conscious rugg say. Each generation I'm so
Speaker 4: proud of has risen to the occasion. And it's not
Speaker 4: just a simple matter of passion. At the time, I
Speaker 4: wish it was that simple. It was really how to
Speaker 4: renew and regenerate our consciousness as a people. Who are
Speaker 4: we in the world, Who are we in America? Not
Speaker 4: only what our past has been, but how does our
Speaker 4: pass inform our presence and our future. That's why I'm
Speaker 4: so honored to be here with you at the Democratic
Speaker 4: National Convention, this pivotal moment in world history. You know,
Speaker 4: you know, soroart the system. I want you to know
Speaker 4: all of my family, my mother, my sisters, my grandmother,
Speaker 4: all akas so I got a lot of pink and
Speaker 4: green in Oxford, North Carolina.
Speaker 3: Oh so your family, your family picked the right sorority
Speaker 3: to be a part of. I just want to make
Speaker 3: sure everybody knows very serious matter. And Vice President Harrison
Speaker 3: also an AKA, so you know we're on the right track.
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely. But I'm a native of Oxford, North Carolina.
Speaker 4: I was born in nineteen forty eight, so I grew
Speaker 4: up in the nineteen fifties when everything was racially segregated.
Speaker 4: But you know, even though things were segregated, I learned
Speaker 4: so much about black history, black knowledge, black scholarship, black excellence,
Speaker 4: and you know, I didn't know that much about white
Speaker 4: people because I was separated from you know, I knew
Speaker 4: about your question. I knew about a popeive, but I
Speaker 4: never saw a white student to my sophomore year in college.
Speaker 5: Wow, and what college did you go to that to bend?
Speaker 4: The first college was sant of Dustin's College at HBCU
Speaker 4: and Ralegh, North Carolina, and transferred to UNC. I was
Speaker 4: a chemistry nator And when I tried to get into
Speaker 4: UH the North Carolina State, which is the white school
Speaker 4: or UNC the West, they told me they were not
Speaker 4: accepting black students unless I majored in music. That was
Speaker 4: I said, no, I want to major in science and
Speaker 4: Young Robert music, but that wasn't my field, and so
Speaker 4: I was dissuaded. Which is fine because going to the
Speaker 4: HBCU the first couple of years was the best decision
Speaker 4: of my life. And uh he gave me a grounder.
Speaker 4: So by the time I transferred to University of North
Speaker 4: Carolina to finish my chemistry degree, I actually was ahead
Speaker 4: of the white student. They used to say, well, where
Speaker 4: did you come from? Who taught you this organic chemistry
Speaker 4: and physical chemistry? And uh, you know nucle can, I said,
Speaker 4: some black teachers at a black school. That's what talk.
Speaker 4: Because you know, I think sometimes we underestimate not only
Speaker 4: where we get education, but how we get our education.
Speaker 4: And so I grew up in the movement. I was
Speaker 4: got my na CITP car when I was twelve years old.
Speaker 4: I started working for SELC Doctor my little kingdom. When
Speaker 4: I was fourteen. Put my age up. We're not supposed
Speaker 4: to drive to sixteens. I put my age up. I
Speaker 4: had mobility. I was driving. You know, I grew up fast.
Speaker 4: James Bonder now became very close friends and he used
Speaker 4: to tell me them party some writing that the pen
Speaker 4: is powerful them to sow it. So I started writing
Speaker 4: for the Black Press when I'm eleven years old in
Speaker 4: the sixth grade. And now, as God would have it,
Speaker 4: for the last eleven years, I've been to president of
Speaker 4: the CEO of Other Black Press of America National Newspaper
Speaker 4: public and Association. But as to me, could say it
Speaker 4: in the intro, what I do now is informed by
Speaker 4: many decades of other struggle. To me, when you have challenges,
Speaker 4: that's preparation. I once asked Reginald Lewis, who was the
Speaker 4: first Black building. I said, Regel, tell me one word
Speaker 4: out of the English language that led to your financial success,
Speaker 4: and he said, preparation, preparation. We have to prepare ourselves
Speaker 4: to deal with the struggles. We have to prepare ourselves
Speaker 4: to learn. And then I started working in the African
Speaker 4: liberation movements in Africa. I joined the a n C.
Speaker 4: I used to write for the a n C, the
Speaker 4: Afghan Acts and youth publication of the SPARE while I
Speaker 4: was you know, in college and high school. And then
Speaker 4: from nineteen sixty three to nineteen sixty eight, I was
Speaker 4: the youth coordinator for Selan Crisis Leadership COMPS until the
Speaker 4: day that doctor King was killed in nineteen sixty eighty
Speaker 4: and eight. So I've been around the blocks a few times.
Speaker 4: But you know what, my son and Tamika, most of
Speaker 4: them sister in the community that they don't know about
Speaker 4: the nap or the mean Man March. They know me
Speaker 4: from the movie Ballet. I was the minister in Bellet.
Speaker 2: You know, I just told you that I was about
Speaker 2: I was about to bring that up.
Speaker 5: Just now.
Speaker 4: I go to anyhood and they said, that's the minister
Speaker 4: from fail. But that shows you the importance though not
Speaker 4: only our all tradition, but our our our image, our
Speaker 4: visual tradition, particularly now among millennials and generation disease. Not
Speaker 4: only what we hear or even what we see us
Speaker 4: a hip hop. Hip hop is what you feel. It's
Speaker 4: just not what you see, but what you hear is
Speaker 4: what you feel. And so I think our movement has
Speaker 4: been successful to the extent to which we can not
Speaker 4: only yes, people can feel our impression oh pressure, but
Speaker 4: can people feel our liberation and people feel what we
Speaker 4: need to do to change our quality of life. And
Speaker 4: that's why I have so much respect for you what
Speaker 4: you're and Tanika do, because you help people feel the
Speaker 4: reality of our struggle for freedom, justice, and required, and
Speaker 4: I'm sorry. I'm gonna give you a short answers to
Speaker 4: no no.
Speaker 2: I just want to say, first of all, it is
Speaker 2: an honor to be able to interview you, to be
Speaker 2: able to know you, to be in space with you,
Speaker 2: to get you know, be able to be tutored by
Speaker 2: just listening to you, you know, last night, talking all
Speaker 2: the times I've been in your presence, and just hearing
Speaker 2: the wisdom that you have and knowing how legendary who
Speaker 2: you are. And it's a shame that our youth are
Speaker 2: not only no belly, right, is only no belly. But
Speaker 2: when you listen to the history you know that you've
Speaker 2: you've been through. I just want to know, like what
Speaker 2: what were some of the things that you you picked
Speaker 2: up working with doctor King?
Speaker 4: Well, I picked up working doctor King. Is that you
Speaker 4: know the eloquence behind the podium, The eloquence on the
Speaker 4: stage of life is informed by what happens off the stage.
Speaker 4: It's informed by what happens before you get to the
Speaker 4: before you get the mic. You know, before you can
Speaker 4: drop the mic. You got a hold of mincy, know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. So as we pick up the mic
Speaker 4: of like I'm talking about as we broadcast as back
Speaker 4: we're doing now, as we articulate, as we disseminate information.
Speaker 4: You know, we're informed by our lived experience, and so
Speaker 4: I've been blessed to me and my sign too. I
Speaker 4: have had lived experiences with Doctor King, live experiences with
Speaker 4: Malcolm X, lived experiences with Minister Farra Con, lived experiences
Speaker 4: with doctor Doctor Height, lived experiences with Rose a Pause,
Speaker 4: lived experiences, you know, Nelson Mandela winning Mandela. I was
Speaker 4: with Cuban troops on the ground, and I was being
Speaker 4: a fox over to the troops fighting the South African
Speaker 4: potactic DA in the mid nineteen eighties. Because one of
Speaker 4: the things I found out that you know, it's one
Speaker 4: thing to talk liberation. It's one thing uh engage in armstructure.
Speaker 4: It's another thing to engage in putting your life on
Speaker 4: the front line. You know. Look, I spent most of
Speaker 4: the nineteen seventies in prison because I be very honest.
Speaker 4: I was mad. I was mad as hell, and they
Speaker 4: killed Doctor King in nineteen sixty eight. But I learned
Speaker 4: the channel my anger into something a modus operandi that
Speaker 4: could help inspire to make sure his dream was not assassinated.
Speaker 5: How long were you incarcerated, doctor.
Speaker 4: Ben six and a half years, but I had a
Speaker 4: thirty four year sentence. I spent most of the nineteen
Speaker 4: seventies in prison. The women to ten case, that's the
Speaker 4: whole I could talk to you about, the whole program
Speaker 4: that they just on the Wilmington tent on all I'm
Speaker 4: so proud of the young people and women's in All
Speaker 4: Carolina who stood up to racial white supremacy in the
Speaker 4: school system. And because they stood up eight high school
Speaker 4: student leaders, sixteen seventeen, eighteen year olds, myself, I was
Speaker 4: only twenty three years old and a white anti poverty
Speaker 4: work a woman who was also a hotelmness with ten
Speaker 4: of us were sent us to two hundred and eighteen
Speaker 4: years in prison, and I had to lunch since thirty four,
Speaker 4: thirty four years. And so the analogy is when I
Speaker 4: heard that Donald Trump had thirty four convictions, thirty four felons,
Speaker 4: I said, with damn, I wonder how much sand he's
Speaker 4: gonna get it, you know. And of course we got
Speaker 4: that time because we bought white supremacy. But one of
Speaker 4: the things I learned from doctor King that is.
Speaker 1: So big, But I really don't I don't want you.
Speaker 3: To brush bast that because that's real, that is so
Speaker 3: so significant, not that you were, which you know, we
Speaker 3: don't have any judgment on this show around what people
Speaker 3: may have done and how they you know, what road
Speaker 3: they traveled, but you weren't scamming and killing or any
Speaker 3: of that. Your path to being incarcerated was because of
Speaker 3: your involvement in the civil rights movement.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, and I think that to me, I'm always
Speaker 4: indebted to my mentors. I had great mentors, Floyd Mchison
Speaker 4: who founded the Conservational Quality you know, Marcaine the Kingdom
Speaker 4: founded the Solitary's Leadership Conference. I used to drive I
Speaker 4: told the car. Yes, I used to drive his father,
Speaker 4: Cleave Sellers and Stoker Comack around when they were in Snick.
Speaker 4: Because back in the day, you just want any one black,
Speaker 4: oder says you in every black if it was black,
Speaker 4: I'm in. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: That sounds like my parents and my life. How I
Speaker 3: grew up in Harlem. We went to the Nation of Islam.
Speaker 3: We went to National Action Network, we went to the
Speaker 3: Black Church, we went to the street corners, we went
Speaker 3: to anything that had to do with black empowerment.
Speaker 1: At the slave theater.
Speaker 4: My parents were dead, so it was one thing I
Speaker 4: guess I should point out anthropologically and geneologically. I was
Speaker 4: really blessed to me could and my son to be
Speaker 4: born in a family. The land we live on in Oxton,
Speaker 4: North Carolina has been in my family for over two
Speaker 4: hundred years. My great great great great grandfather was the
Speaker 4: Reverend John Chambers. He was the first brother to Bill
Speaker 4: Dain as a presidter in minister. But what significant is
Speaker 4: it was a freedom fighter. He was an educator. Now
Speaker 4: this was before the Nat. Turner Insurrection. My grandfather was
Speaker 4: born in seventeen sixty seven, fought in the Revolutionary War,
Speaker 4: came an ordained minister, the educator. But in the early
Speaker 4: nine eighteen thirty then Turner Insurrection happened. The state of Virginia,
Speaker 4: the state of North Carolina, the state of South Carolina,
Speaker 4: the state of Georgia, State of Alabama, and Statelissis passed
Speaker 4: the law making it a fella and to teach black
Speaker 4: Side to read and write a felon. So my great
Speaker 4: great grandfather was an educator, so he set up an
Speaker 4: underground school in Grandma County, my home county, Native County.
Speaker 4: His county, and so he taught white students by day
Speaker 4: and black students secretly by night. But they caught up
Speaker 4: with him. My grandfather was beating the death back in
Speaker 4: the day there were no cars. They had horse and bugget,
Speaker 4: and they beat him to death, hid his body, cut
Speaker 4: the head off of his horses, and took the head
Speaker 4: of his horse to his wife. And we never found
Speaker 4: his grade. They didn't want us to honor him in
Speaker 4: a funeral. So I grew up with that kind of
Speaker 4: history in my family. I come from a generation, yes,
Speaker 4: of educators menisince i'man all they minister myself. But the
Speaker 4: underlying common donative common denominated for the males and females
Speaker 4: in my family were freedom fighters. So I had no choice, man,
Speaker 4: you know. And I was in the fourth grade strip
Speaker 4: uh uh. Going back to the first grade, I knew
Speaker 4: what racism was and and and I knew that something
Speaker 4: that we should not have been tolerated. So I was
Speaker 4: one of the impatient. Yeah, I was impatient in my family.
Speaker 4: And that's why by the time I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 4: I thought I was grown. I'm ready to get it on.
Speaker 4: But get it on from the wisdom of the past,
Speaker 4: and like I said, I had great mentors, and that's
Speaker 4: when I try to be now to our brothers and
Speaker 4: sisters today as a mentor, not just as a leader,
Speaker 4: but as a mentor, because none of us will be
Speaker 4: here forever. But while we are blessed to be here,
Speaker 4: let's pass something on. Let's pass something wrong, so the
Speaker 4: next generation won't have to go through the same things
Speaker 4: that we go through.
Speaker 3: You know, well, doctor Ben, before you go, before you
Speaker 3: go forward on that because one of the reasons why
Speaker 3: we wanted to talk with you today. As we sat
Speaker 3: together last night in a very private meeting, you know,
Speaker 3: I was thinking a lot about my son and I
Speaker 3: have been talking about the history of this whole idea
Speaker 3: of the Convention. Right, we know this is not the
Speaker 3: first time in Convention history that there has been major
Speaker 3: tension around different social issues. And the meeting that we
Speaker 3: were at last night, we were specifically dealing with the
Speaker 3: issue of black and Palestinian liberation and how our struggles
Speaker 3: are intertwined. And it made me think so much about
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty eight and the climate for which that particular
Speaker 3: convention took place. And I know you have so much
Speaker 3: that you can share with us about that, and so
Speaker 3: just you know, want to give you, you know, an
Speaker 3: opportunity to talk about nineteen sixty eight, who were the operators,
Speaker 3: what was give us the team on what was going down.
Speaker 4: I was a young youth delegate from all Calina, my
Speaker 4: home state, nineteen sixty eight. And keep in mind, the
Speaker 4: nineteen six convention happened in the wake of doctor King's assassination.
Speaker 4: They happened in the wake of Robert Kennedy's assessments. And
Speaker 4: then you had Richard Nixon running for president with Spiro Agnue,
Speaker 4: the former governor of Maryland, who were running on a
Speaker 4: law and order campaign, and so lor and O. It
Speaker 4: wasn't just with the Republicans the Democrats. Also. Mayor Dale
Speaker 4: was a Democratic mayor, but he sik the police on
Speaker 4: the protest, brutally beating people down as they tried to
Speaker 4: exercise their person in the right. I was inside the
Speaker 4: convention center and I was telling somebody last night to me,
Speaker 4: what a change time brings. From sixty eight to two
Speaker 4: thousand and four, we couldn't even we had to fight
Speaker 4: even to get be able to sit down in a
Speaker 4: convention in nineteen They didn't want black people to be delicates.
Speaker 4: They didn't want black people to be pages. They didn't
Speaker 4: want black people to have a media station. They don't
Speaker 4: want They were trying to exclude black folks in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 4: In fact, Julian Bob finding Lou Hayman had to go
Speaker 4: to court just to get the right to sit down
Speaker 4: in the convention. So now we run in the convention.
Speaker 4: Black women are running the convention. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: And a lot of times to me, I'm glad you
Speaker 4: asked that question, because we live in the present and
Speaker 4: sometimes the president evil overwhelms us or underwhelms us. Well,
Speaker 4: we we think that what's happening today is suspended in
Speaker 4: today's reality. But this is a long evolutionary struggle, you know,
Speaker 4: even in the DNC. And let me just point something out, Uh,
Speaker 4: the Democrats were the original white supremacists. And my home
Speaker 4: state of North Carolina, the Democrats were the original white
Speaker 4: supremacists who attacked women to North Carolina. Because blacks have
Speaker 4: formed a fusion with the Republicans, look out the script
Speaker 4: this flip. The Republican Party was once a part of Lincoln.
Speaker 4: Now it's the party of the white supremacists. Now it's
Speaker 4: the party of of of far white uh racism and
Speaker 4: the semitism you just named.
Speaker 5: Where was the switch again, sir? Because there's always.
Speaker 4: Late late eighteen hundreds, okay, late.
Speaker 2: Always this thing that the Republicans is actually the party
Speaker 2: for black people, and this and that that you don't.
Speaker 4: Know, y'all, No, no history. You got to know that history.
Speaker 4: The script was flip flipped, you know. Uh. Jessic Hams
Speaker 4: used to be a Democrat. He became a Republican with
Speaker 4: the Desocrats. And UH. These are the people who fought
Speaker 4: when Sturgood Marshingtom got the Brown Decision in nineteen such four,
Speaker 4: UH saying that UH surrogate's schools was unconstitutional. You had
Speaker 4: all these people who wanted to assassinate Tilgod Marshall, you know,
Speaker 4: because of that litigation, because they didn't want black and
Speaker 4: white kids toy ever go to school together. Because we
Speaker 4: may find out something, and that is there's no such
Speaker 4: thing as white superiority. There's no such thing in UH.
Speaker 4: While it is an ideology of white supremacy, it's a
Speaker 4: fake ideology. It has no substance, It has no answer
Speaker 4: bout other than the brutal translantic slavery that they engage us.
Speaker 4: And I want to plug a book that's coming out
Speaker 4: in September to make I gotta get through my son,
Speaker 4: uh Sayty Brown, one of our writers, and the Nytry
Speaker 4: we just published, you know, it's coming out in September.
Speaker 4: And the Translanta slave trade, because Translanta slatrade didn't just
Speaker 4: started in sixteen nineteen, It started in fifteen hundreds. The
Speaker 4: translation staty was going on one hundred years before they
Speaker 4: brought the first slave to the Virginia shore. And this brutality,
Speaker 4: this inhumanity, uh you know. So to me, going back
Speaker 4: to Tamika's question, I'm honored just to witness what's going
Speaker 4: on here, But it also means we have the responsibility
Speaker 4: that what are those struggles, what are those alloness? We
Speaker 4: should have? Well, what can we learn? What do we
Speaker 4: know about the Middle East? What do we know about
Speaker 4: nineteen forty eight? What do we know about the United Nations?
Speaker 4: What do we know about World War two? My father
Speaker 4: was a better than of World War One? Do we
Speaker 4: know the sacrifice that Black troops made going to the
Speaker 4: front line in France fighting for democracy and then they
Speaker 4: get wounded and they can't even come back home on
Speaker 4: the ship. They came back home on the ship the
Speaker 4: German prisons. German prisons was treated better than black soldiers
Speaker 4: who fought the Germans. I mean, all this stuff, and
Speaker 4: so I used to ask my fatsid dad, what's going on?
Speaker 4: He said, sons, one day you understand and appreciate the
Speaker 4: sacrifices that we made. We know that racism, but we
Speaker 4: fought for America because hopefully one day America the chine
Speaker 4: and yes, America is changing, but still ain't changing fast enough,
Speaker 4: you know, And that's our role. Each generation has to
Speaker 4: push that envelope, push those questions and push that reelly.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, I am concerned about our
Speaker 4: state of consciousness as a people. You know, I was
Speaker 4: involved in the Black Power when Look when I was
Speaker 4: a kid. If you call somebody black, that was a
Speaker 4: cuss work, people will cut you out. They think we
Speaker 4: were so ashamed of our blackness, would sure a claim
Speaker 4: of our color, were so ashamed of I have was
Speaker 4: sure a shamed of our nose, our lips because let
Speaker 4: me just chaw with you. When I was in the
Speaker 4: first grade, even though there was a black elementary school
Speaker 4: because of segregation, the white school system told us what
Speaker 4: books we had to read. So I learned how to
Speaker 4: read out of a book called Sambo. And Sambo was
Speaker 4: a of a disfigured little African brother who only ate
Speaker 4: pancakes with dripping served you all jip down there, you know.
Speaker 4: It was like they made him like somebody. Well, I
Speaker 4: don't want to be like sample, but but but but
Speaker 4: planting it in the seats of black students in the
Speaker 4: first place. So well, I don't want to be black,
Speaker 4: I want to be white. That's why I when the
Speaker 4: bullets study with black dogs and white dogs, A lot
Speaker 4: of black children true white dogs, because that's how they've
Speaker 4: been miseducated. You know, college wasn't headed right, the miseducation
Speaker 4: of the negro you know. And so one of the
Speaker 4: fights we have in twenty twenty four, it's about education,
Speaker 4: it's about uh, it's about curriculum, it's about consciousness.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you went there.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you a part of Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: which is the conservative Republican platform that we know Donald
Speaker 3: Trump endorses.
Speaker 1: While he says he does not. We know why he's
Speaker 1: denying it.
Speaker 3: But Project twenty twenty five we know, had some very
Speaker 3: very dangerous components. One of the things in it, however,
Speaker 3: has attracted a number of people that I know, doctor
Speaker 3: Ben Black folks who have said closing the Department of Education.
Speaker 3: They believe that that may be sensible, right. I don't
Speaker 3: think that Project twenty twenty five is doing it for
Speaker 3: the reasons that Black folks want something to happen.
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: They want to change how children are educated to ensure
Speaker 3: that we are less conscious. As you said, that their
Speaker 3: own children learn less about our movements and our struggle,
Speaker 3: and they would like to deposit into us and our
Speaker 3: people and our children whatever it is that they want,
Speaker 3: that serves only the purpose of white supremacy.
Speaker 1: That's what we know.
Speaker 3: However, there are people who have children right now in
Speaker 3: public schools across this country that have and obviously Department
Speaker 3: of Education is supposed to be the governing body, and
Speaker 3: people do not feel good about how their children are
Speaker 3: being educated. They feel their kids are being left behind.
Speaker 3: They don't feel that when they approach the Department or
Speaker 3: you know, or administration, that there's anything really being done
Speaker 3: to deal with the disparities in education for our youth.
Speaker 3: And so what would you say to someone who's looking
Speaker 3: at that and saying, well, maybe for that particular reason,
Speaker 3: Project twenty twenty five is good.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you. Project twenty twenty five is the latest
Speaker 4: rendition from the Heridge Foundation of the institutionalized white supremacy, institutionalization.
Speaker 4: And I think when I listened to you, to me,
Speaker 4: you know what came to mind. The Will of Lynch level.
Speaker 4: Project twenty five is an expansion of the Will of
Speaker 4: Lynch uh uh letter that told the white supremacists how
Speaker 4: to keep black people divided, how to keep us at
Speaker 4: each other's strokes, how to miseducate us. And so I
Speaker 4: think that keep in mind, education is really not controlled
Speaker 4: by the federal Education is controlled by these local school
Speaker 4: boards by just let the state. While the Department Education
Speaker 4: may pass a policy, but who implements the police. You
Speaker 4: know a lot of states have gotten funds, and because
Speaker 4: you have these reactions and governments, they don't even distribute
Speaker 4: to the funds. And a lot of hpc us should
Speaker 4: be getting funded. And and that's why what Biden herdsmans
Speaker 4: have done so significant by putting billions and dollars back
Speaker 4: into hpcus. But think about all the years well we
Speaker 4: didn't get that front, you know, and so and then
Speaker 4: people try to equate, you know, Harbored with Howard, though
Speaker 4: more House with Stamford. But the resources were dramatically under servius,
Speaker 4: under source. So I think there's brother and sisters who
Speaker 4: are concerned about education. Yeah, that's right, But what is
Speaker 4: the solution to the education club. I think education process
Speaker 4: is starting the home. We give our children off to
Speaker 4: teachers we don't know. We give our children off to
Speaker 4: curriculums we have not investigated. We go to PTA meetings.
Speaker 4: Who shows up at the PTA meetings? Who shows up
Speaker 4: at the school board meetings? Who shows up at the
Speaker 4: city councilor who shows up at the county commissioner meetings?
Speaker 4: You know? Who just rupts the state legislature. I'm so
Speaker 4: glad that one of my mentors the names Golden French
Speaker 4: City and State Field Center s CLCE. We got some
Speaker 4: man with the state legislature in North Carolina. So while
Speaker 4: they were in session, we got transferred truck row of
Speaker 4: chickens and we backed it up and turned the chickens
Speaker 4: to loose in the state legislature as a protest to
Speaker 4: what the state legislature has done. So I learned something
Speaker 4: about positive action around education. The reason why the Wilmington
Speaker 4: Tyn went to tail cause of education. I'm so proud
Speaker 4: of young people will put their lives on the line
Speaker 4: to fight for education. Some of you know here in
Speaker 4: the a here in the city of Chicago, at the
Speaker 4: United Centers, there's a statue of the greatest one of
Speaker 4: the greatest basketball players, you know, And I think that
Speaker 4: we need to realize that what we've been through in
Speaker 4: the education process, Yes we have demands, Yes we have grievances,
Speaker 4: but the solution to our agreements is is not Qroject
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five. You know, the solution to our agreements
Speaker 4: is not accommodating from the Herrigge Foundation, which I'm view
Speaker 4: is it me and month of million dollar enterprise that
Speaker 4: puts out uh fake information and then passes that out uh.
Speaker 4: You know, I think that they there's a debate about scholarship.
Speaker 4: There is a debate about what truth is. There's a
Speaker 4: debate about where you find it, and then once you
Speaker 4: find the truth, how you disseminate their truth amidst this
Speaker 4: atmosphere of all the misinformation, this information. You know, look
Speaker 4: what happened in two twenty sixteen when Trump and Press
Speaker 4: got elected. He shouldn't have won that election, but there
Speaker 4: was so many Russian interference that leaving today fake accounts.
Speaker 4: I get so many when I go on social media.
Speaker 4: I said, this ain't really no black personsbody to be black,
Speaker 4: you know, you know? And then I saw it was
Speaker 4: a sad commentary. Recently, I saw a brother in Georgia
Speaker 4: wearing a T shirt Niggas for Trump, and he was
Speaker 4: proud of it. He was proud to call himself a nigga.
Speaker 4: He was pulling himself to call himself Trump. This self destruction,
Speaker 4: Malcolm talked about, uh, you know self, Patrick, He talked
Speaker 4: about not loving oneself, But you get love for oneself
Speaker 4: person in your heart home, you get love of self
Speaker 4: in your church, in your community. Then you take that
Speaker 4: self love to the schools and demand that. Uh. Not
Speaker 4: only our students learned the truth about our history, but
Speaker 4: my students also need to learn the truth because they
Speaker 4: wanted they've been missed miss educate.
Speaker 2: Also, y'all, I wanted to ask you about the gang
Speaker 2: conference you did because I do a lot of work
Speaker 2: with with at risk youth in the community, gang members.
Speaker 2: So this black murder campaign that we created. You know,
Speaker 2: it's around just trying to gear and just connect our
Speaker 2: youth and stop the self hate and stop the violence
Speaker 2: and community.
Speaker 4: Can you give me? Yeah. In nineteen ninety three, I
Speaker 4: was so proud. I just become the young director of
Speaker 4: the NWSP and we held the first Gang Something. Actually,
Speaker 4: the first Gang Some was planned before I went to
Speaker 4: the NAC, planned by the United trich to Christ Commisigation
Speaker 4: Justice and other grassroots groups. As you know in early
Speaker 4: now as there was a war going on between East
Speaker 4: and West gangs. You know, uh, it really has not
Speaker 4: not so much to do with territory. They asked us
Speaker 4: much to do with how we defined or misdefine who
Speaker 4: the enemy was. And we decided we need to put
Speaker 4: a stop to this. So we said, well, well we're gonna
Speaker 4: have the first Gang Something. We said we're gonna do
Speaker 4: it in the middle of the United States. So the
Speaker 4: brothers from the East Coast had to go to the
Speaker 4: middle of the brothers from the West clubs coming in.
Speaker 4: So we chose Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, and hundreds
Speaker 4: of Bloods, Crypts, gangst the site, all kind of brothers
Speaker 4: and sisters.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: Well, it was mainly brothers. There were a few sisters
Speaker 4: main and brothers. H All the what they call shop
Speaker 4: callers in the streets came and Uh, I remember the
Speaker 4: end was if he asked me, you're still gonna have
Speaker 4: this gang something, I said, absolutely, we're gonna have it,
Speaker 4: and uh, we're now on it and estabish the truth,
Speaker 4: which was important. But more importantly, we found out that
Speaker 4: we don't have to allow other people to define who
Speaker 4: we are. And we decided to train change the name
Speaker 4: from games to street organizations. We decided to change the name.
Speaker 4: You can still be the Blood and Crisps, but whether
Speaker 4: you're doing to serve the community, you know, what is
Speaker 4: our service to our liberation? What is our service uh
Speaker 4: to uh uh to combat and police brutality? You know,
Speaker 4: it's one thing for us to get upset when white
Speaker 4: folks brutalize us, but we don't get upset when we
Speaker 4: googlize each other. There's something wrong with that script and
Speaker 4: we wanted to change it. And I'm gonna want to
Speaker 4: give you good news that once we got people around
Speaker 4: the table, my son, people found out they had common
Speaker 4: interest wether than contrary interests, rather than contradictory interests. We
Speaker 4: have commonness. You know, when we'll stopped by the police,
Speaker 4: the police ain't gonna ask you were your blood or
Speaker 4: crypto against the cycle. You know, they don't care what
Speaker 4: it is, your blackness, it is your it is what
Speaker 4: we've been through is the people that determines our faith.
Speaker 4: And so that was very successful. And after the Kansas
Speaker 4: City summer, we had regional summers around uh the country. UH.
Speaker 4: And then of course you know when the uh Rodney
Speaker 4: King thing, have you know?
Speaker 3: UH?
Speaker 4: A year or so later, uh, we went out to
Speaker 4: l A. I stayed in Nicholson Gardens, Jordan Downs. I
Speaker 4: stayed in the projects and a lot of the end
Speaker 4: of us you own doctor staying at the Bannabnu Hotel
Speaker 4: downtown and low that said, no, I'm staying with the struggle.
Speaker 4: Is if something going down in l A, I'm going
Speaker 4: down with some rise up. I'm rising up with it.
Speaker 4: And I was so proud of the young people in
Speaker 4: South Central because we had the truth. Look, I saw
Speaker 4: bloods and clips protecting mamas and daughters. I saw working together. Well,
Speaker 4: your color was red, Well, your color was blue. I
Speaker 4: remember one of the foundings of the Crypts, who's gonna
Speaker 4: give me his a car. I said, no, man, I
Speaker 4: can't drive your car because people may think that I'm
Speaker 4: identifying with one group of another. I said, I'll walk,
Speaker 4: you know, give me, give me, give me some bullod
Speaker 4: to walk through these communities. And one of the things
Speaker 4: to me, cause you would be proud today. You know
Speaker 4: who the shot calls are today in the community running
Speaker 4: the projects run in South central you know. And because
Speaker 4: a lot of the buller's in the joint, a lot
Speaker 4: of in the cemetery. So black women has risen to
Speaker 4: the occasion to take over the quality of life and
Speaker 4: those what we call projects. Of course, the Chicago, they
Speaker 4: they dismantled and destroyed all the projects, made people flee
Speaker 4: the city. And that's why the city always looks at
Speaker 4: the demographics have changed. Same thing in DC. Chocolate City
Speaker 4: used to be a black city is no longer because
Speaker 4: you're being pushed out because of gentrification. But you know,
Speaker 4: I just think that I want to make sure that
Speaker 4: whatever I say today on the program, that I give
Speaker 4: some hopes of inspiration.
Speaker 3: I don't want to see this would be your final words,
Speaker 3: So please give us some inspiration.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, first of all, looking at you and
Speaker 4: my song. I get reinspired because I see the future
Speaker 4: in you too. I see the future in the colleagues
Speaker 4: that you organize and the colleagues that you mobilize. And
Speaker 4: I remember when we start had the anniversaries of the
Speaker 4: Men Man March, you start showing up because you're an organizer,
Speaker 4: you know, putting stuff together. I was so proud of you.
Speaker 4: And I know a lot of people came down on
Speaker 4: you because of your association with UH, that grassroots mobilization.
Speaker 4: But you know what, it made you stronger. And I'm
Speaker 4: gonna say this. I don't want people to think that
Speaker 4: I said, go look for some adversity that make you stronger. No,
Speaker 4: that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the state
Speaker 4: of affairs of our people, we have to either let
Speaker 4: those affairs break us or make us stronger. You know
Speaker 4: we we yes, we're resilient. Where resilians come from standing up,
Speaker 4: resisians that I've come from osmosis, Well, you know we
Speaker 4: we have we have to lift ourselves up. Ain't nobody
Speaker 4: gonna come lift us up. We have to lift ourselves up.
Speaker 4: We have to hold our heads up with dignity, with purpose,
Speaker 4: with intergity, and you know, I want to close on
Speaker 4: this point. This is the year of the Black woman.
Speaker 4: Lord have us. I'm so proud of black women. You know,
Speaker 4: they not on took over this DNC convention. Guess whom
Speaker 4: taking all the grassroots organizations in our community? Sisters, sister readers,
Speaker 4: sister me. I mean, I'm so glad, you know, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, if we had to do another Belly movie,
Speaker 4: it'll be about these systems soldiers taking over.
Speaker 2: I just want to ask question, and I feel the
Speaker 2: same way that you feel about our women taking over.
Speaker 2: But what do you say to the brothers who are
Speaker 2: feeling threatened by that?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: Because it's such a pushback. You know, I celebrate our
Speaker 2: black women.
Speaker 4: I've been very good and a very good question.
Speaker 2: I'm going to vote for Kamala Harris because it's a
Speaker 2: black woman. I want to see a win. And there's
Speaker 2: so many black men right now who are threatened by that.
Speaker 5: So what do you say?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm close out with this answer. As a black man,
Speaker 4: I should not and cannot be intimidated by the rise
Speaker 4: of black women, because then black women arise. Guess who
Speaker 4: I see riots, I see my mama, raps I see
Speaker 4: my grandmother rise, and you know, I see queen arising,
Speaker 4: I see the warriors, warriors, sisters. See. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But it's so important that we learn our history. All
Speaker 4: the warriors were not brothers. Yes, the brother's the warriors,
Speaker 4: but sisters the warriors too, you know. Yes we had kings,
Speaker 4: but also had queens, you know. And so I think
Speaker 4: that this dynamic sticking now by someone, well, some brothers
Speaker 4: intimidated by the rise of black women, and they're using
Speaker 4: it as an excuse not to vote for Kamra Harris.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna tell brothers, study our history, study of our consciouces.
Speaker 4: We should, in fact, we should all be inspired as
Speaker 4: black men by the rise of black women. Because when
Speaker 4: black women rise, the whole family rights, when black men rise,
Speaker 4: the whole family rights. We can't afford this conflict between
Speaker 4: black men and black women. What we need to do
Speaker 4: is embrace one another, embrace the success of one another.
Speaker 4: And if one of us fall, whether they're a sister
Speaker 4: or brother, let's pick that brother or that sister up.
Speaker 4: Let's march together. Let's fight together. And if we watch
Speaker 4: together and together, my son, we will win together.
Speaker 5: And you said it all.
Speaker 2: Doctor ben We appreciaiate you, We love you, thank you
Speaker 2: for everything that you're young and you continue to do.
Speaker 2: And I'm just great gracious to be able to have
Speaker 2: you as one of the individuals that I could reach
Speaker 2: out to.
Speaker 4: Please, thank you, God bless you. Okay, thank you for this.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I love you so much.
Speaker 2: By shout out to doctor ben Chaves. As you know,
Speaker 2: we are in the DNC and Tamika had to go
Speaker 2: to a panel, so shout out to her for this
Speaker 2: amazing discussion. When you listen to brothers like doctor ben Chaevis,
Speaker 2: who has so much deep history, and you listen to
Speaker 2: what he's accomplished and the errors he would like, it's
Speaker 2: a shame that they want to do away with history
Speaker 2: like that. They don't want to notify you and educate
Speaker 2: you about brothers like doctor ben Chavers.
Speaker 5: When you when you listen to this is what this is.
Speaker 2: A person that they would call a DEI high right,
Speaker 2: they would talk about identity policy, But when you listen
Speaker 2: to this man, he is probably one of the most
Speaker 2: intelligent people in the world. He told you how he
Speaker 2: went to an HBCU and then when he transferred to
Speaker 2: North Carolina. He was ahead of the game, right, So
Speaker 2: they might they try to make you seem like the
Speaker 2: education in HBCUs isn't equal, equal or superior to you know,
Speaker 2: education in other schools. But that's obviously not the truth
Speaker 2: because when you look at our brilliant Black people who've.
Speaker 5: Done so much throughout history, who who.
Speaker 2: Have acclimated and ascended in every area of life, you
Speaker 2: know a lot of them come from HBCUs. So now
Speaker 2: they try to weaponize this DEI tag and this identity politics.
Speaker 2: I tell people all the times I have no problem
Speaker 2: with identity politics. I'm with everybody black. I want to
Speaker 2: see black people get equity. I want to see them
Speaker 2: get justice. I want to see us get to the
Speaker 2: level that we deserve to be at because we've been
Speaker 2: denied those things. So me wanting to see positive things
Speaker 2: for my people does not mean that I want to
Speaker 2: see negative for anybody else. I just want to see
Speaker 2: my people reach the level that everybody else's people and
Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong with that. And people will try to
Speaker 2: make you think it's something wrong with that. As I'm
Speaker 2: at this DNC convention, surrounded by black excellence, as I
Speaker 2: watched the DNC conference last night and seeing black excellence
Speaker 2: and seeing leaders that I know came from grass roots organizations,
Speaker 2: people that I know is on the ground with me,
Speaker 2: be in positions of power to be able to change
Speaker 2: and make laws and policy. As I see a black
Speaker 2: woman running for president and ahead in the polls, I am.
Speaker 5: I am motivated.
Speaker 2: I am motivated because I feel like things to happen,
Speaker 2: and I feel like there's things happening. Anybody who's not
Speaker 2: motivated by that as a black person, I don't know
Speaker 2: what to tell you.
Speaker 5: I don't know what your motivation is. But I know
Speaker 5: I'm motivated.
Speaker 2: I know when our kids look into a room like that,
Speaker 2: they know what they can be. When you hear someone
Speaker 2: like doctor Chavis and understand what he the way he paved.
Speaker 2: He talked about how his grandfather lost his life, He
Speaker 2: lost his life to teach right so that he can
Speaker 2: be where he is today right. And every generation is
Speaker 2: responsible for his own liberation. So now it's time for
Speaker 2: us to be responsible for our liberations. So I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do everything I possibly can to contribute to that. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna stand ten toes down. I'm not gonna be distracted
Speaker 2: by haters, by bots by whoever you try to send
Speaker 2: to determ me. I'm gonna speak truth to power every time,
Speaker 2: because when you tell the truth, you don't gotta.
Speaker 5: Think about it.
Speaker 2: You can sleep good at night every night when you
Speaker 2: tell the truth every night. I'm gonna sleep good at
Speaker 2: night because I know I tell the truth, and I
Speaker 2: stand firm more truth and everything that I say, I
Speaker 2: believe in my heart.
Speaker 5: There's nothing that can sway me from.
Speaker 2: My beliefs unless you could tell me something that is
Speaker 2: that conflicts that's right, unless you can tell me a
Speaker 2: truth that conflicts my truth, that tells me that the
Speaker 2: truth that I have is wrong. I'm staying firm and
Speaker 2: I'm ten toes down on that, and with that brings
Speaker 2: me to another end. It brings me to the end
Speaker 2: of another episode of TMI. Shout out to Tamika Hope
Speaker 2: she's having a dope panel. Shout out to doctor ben Chevis.
Speaker 2: Shout out to all of the fans. We appreciate y'all.
Speaker 2: We're gonna try to give you more content from the DNC.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go out and see who else I can meet,
Speaker 2: who else I can interview, so that y'all can get
Speaker 2: some of this knowledge, because this black knowledge that they
Speaker 2: trying to not put in these books is out here.
Speaker 2: And we got historians like doctor Ben Chavis, and there's
Speaker 2: so many others out here. So hopefully I'll run into
Speaker 2: some and we get some of these interviews and get
Speaker 2: you some of this information. But a twill, then I
Speaker 2: appreciate you. I'm not gonna always be right, Tamika D.
Speaker 2: Mallori is not gonna always be wrong, but we will
Speaker 2: both always and I mean always be authentic until next time.
Speaker 4: So that that's so.
Speaker 2: Check out the video version of TMO.
Speaker 3: Every single Wednesday on Iwoman dot TV.
Speaker 5: That's how we yoned